McLaren driver Lando Norris called himself an "idiot" following qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix, as he missed out on beating the two Renault cars.
The rookie driver had been seventh prior to the second flying laps in Q3, but a poor out-lap followed by some "silly" mistakes left the 19-year-old feeling as though he missed out on a better result – he starts tenth for Sunday's race.
"It was a good feeling I had," said Norris. "Q1 went well, Q2 went very well, I did a really nice lap. I was happy, confident – we didn't change anything in the car, really.
"I went out for my final run and I didn't quite get the warm-up I wanted to do with these tyres and I was maybe a bit close to the car ahead.
"Then I just didn't have the confidence because of these two factors to push and be on the limit as much as I was in Q2.
"Then I had some brain fade in the middle [sector] – wrong gears and so on. So it just went very wrong and I lost time trying to make up for it because I'm an idiot. And I just lost out even more. It was just silly mistakes, basically."
Norris described one of the mistakes as "quite big" and one that he's "probably never made ever before". Asked to explain that, he added: "I just did the wrong gear in the hairpin. Just didn't downshift as many gears as I should have done, so I lost the rear and had a bad exit [and] wheelspin.
"I just tried to make up for it, [but] I had a bit too much temperature in the rears and then it was just a spiralling effect all the way to the end," he added.
Norris' McLaren team-mate Carlos Sainz starts seventh ahead of both Renault cars, with Norris tenth.
